Oswald Mosley

Oswald Mosley (16 November 1896-3 December 1980) was a British Conservative Party and Labour Party MP from 1918 to 1931 and the leader of the British Union of Fascists, which he founded in 1932. During World War II, he was considered as a possible leader of a British puppet state if Nazi Germany succeeded in defeating Britain.

Biography
Oswald Mosley was born in Westminster, London, England in 1896, and he was educated at Winchester and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He served in World War I in the Royal Flying Corps and the 16th Lancers. He left military service in 1916 and moved to the Ministry of Munitions and the Foreign Office. In 1918, he entered Parliament for Harrow. He was elected as a Conservative Party member, but became disillusioned with the party, and in 1922 and 1923, was re-elected in Harrow as an independent. In 1924, he joined the Labour Party, and stood for Birmingham Ladywood, where he nearly defeated Neville Chamberlain. He spent two years travelling and developing his views on economics, and in a 1926 by-election was elected as Labour MP for Smethwick. In Ramsay MacDonald's second Labour government, he became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and in 1930 he produced the "Mosley Memorandum", which proposed that the Labour government should implement public works schemes in order to tackle unemployment. When this was rejected by the cabinet, he resigned from office, formed the New Party, and lost his seat at the 1931 general election.

Following a visit to Italy in 1932, when he was impressed by the achievements of Benito Mussolini, Mosley formed the British Union of Fascists. He criticized every aspect of the British political system, focusing on the decadence of the ruling elite. Thep arty lost its early middle-class support following violent outbursts at a meeting at Olympia in June 1934. It became increasingly anti-Semitic, as became apparent in 1936 when it organized a march through Jewish areas in the East End of London. After the resulting Battle of Cable Street on 4 October 1936, the government passed the Public Order Act in 1936, which banned the wearing of political uniforms, and gave the police increased powers with which to prevent such marches. As a Nazi sympathzier he was imprisoned from 1940 to 1943, and kept under house arrest for the remainder of the war, and in 1948, he founded the Union Movement, which he led until 1966, campaigning for European unity. He failed to be re-elected to Parliament.